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200 held on way to Gobindpura
Ex-AG's son quits, but govt won't let him go
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Can’t delete vote sans prior notice
Rs 80 per quintal bonus on paddy likely: BKU
RDX recovery: State towns were
on hit-list too
Union Govt gives nod to reuse of gunny bags
2,000 litres of synthetic milk seized in Patiala
JEs to go on mass casual leave from October 18
High Court dismisses CMC appeal on admission norms
16 arrested in anti-piracy raids
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200 held on way to Gobindpura
Mansa, October 14 On their way to “disrupt” the work on the boundary wall of the project being set up in the private sector by Indiabulls, the protesters, most of them from Moga and Mansa districts, were detained at the Mansa intersection. They had gathered at Joga village before proceeding towards Gobindpura. Following the call for protest given by the 17 farmers’ unions, the fraternity members have been, for the past one week, trying to reach the thermal plant site where the construction work began three days ago. Though the district administration claims that only 91 acres (of the 882 acres allotted for the project) were disputed, farmers contend the figure stood at 186 acres. The disputed land, the farmers claimed, belonged to 58 families and had 70 owners. “The government has issued three notifications for land acquisition: first for 560 acres, second for 77 acres and then another for 166 acres. Of the 166 acres, farmers of 92 acres have not accepted any cheques,” said Ram Singh Bhainibagha, BKU (Ekta-Ugraha) district president who is spearheading the agitation in Mansa. However, the farmers have been demanding exclusion of the 166 acres from the total land acquired for the 1,320 MW power project. Alleging use of pressure tactics by the government to make them accept cheques in lieu of their land, the affected farmers claim that they were not able to purchase land elsewhere in the state with the amount that had been offered to them. SAD (A) general secretary Gursewak Singh Jawaharke said: “It (use of pressure tactics) is a clear case of abuse of power and we have written a letter in this regard to the Prime Minister requesting him to appoint an independent agency to look into barbaric act of the Punjab Government.” Deputy Commissioner Ravinder Singh claimed of the total area under the project, only 91 acres was disputed. As many as 57 acres have been categorised as those having court cases without stay orders, he said, adding over 720 acres had already been acquired.
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Ex-AG's son quits, but govt won't let him go
Chandigarh, October 14 Available information suggests Arshvinder Singh is insisting on submitting his resignation from the Additional Advocate-General's post, but the Advocate-General's office is just not willing to accept it. It has been learnt that Arshvinder Singh tendered his resignation from the post on October 10, soon after his father Baldev Singh stepped down from the Advocate-General's post following differences over the issue of handling cases pertaining to the Punjab State Electricity Board. Baldev Singh has already been replaced by senior advocate Ashok Aggarwal. Arshvinder Singh's resignation was, however, not accepted. In fact, the rejection of his resignation offer was communicated to Arshvinder Singh at his residence just about two days later. He was even requested to join back the office. Indications are that Arshvinder Singh soon after receiving the communication proceeded on leave, before resubmitting his resignation letter again this morning. As of now, it is not clear whether Arshvinder Singh's resignation has been finally accepted. Baldev Singh, just about a week back, had resigned on the question of principles involving the issue of representing the Punjab State Electricity Board. On September 23, a notification was issued appointing Baldev Singh as the senior standing counsel for the Board cases. But, he was under "tremendous pressure" to hand over the cases to an Additional Advocate-General.
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BMI begins London to Amritsar flight
Amritsar, October 14 The inaugural flight landed at Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport, Amritsar, at around 3 am today with 150 passengers aboard. BMI CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer accompanied the first guests in the inaugural flight from London (BD991). The return flight to London took off from the airport about an hour later. The thrice-a-week flight from Amritsar to London will be on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. From London, it will be on Monday, Thursday and Saturday. BMI’S Amritsar-London service is operated on a modern, wide-body Airbus A330-200 aircraft. It accommodates 232 passengers and is configured with 36 business class and 196 economy class seats. The economy class return fares start from just
Rs 38,091, including taxes. The approximate travel time from Amritsar to London is 12 hours while from London to Amritsar it is 11 hours 35 minutes, which includes a brief stop-over in Almaty, Kazhakastan, without changing aircraft. The flight will depart from Amritsar at 4.10 am while on return journey it will arrive in the holy city at 2.45 am. However, according to the BMI, this schedule is applicable from October 31, i.e. the start of the upcoming winter schedule. Until October 30, the departure and arrival time varies slightly.
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Can’t delete vote sans prior notice
Chandigarh :The Election Commission of India (ECI) today said that being an election year, no vote shall be deleted without prior notice to the person concerned. Chief Electoral Officer Kusumjit Sidhu said today that these instructions shall remain in force till the elections to the Punjab Assembly are held. Instructions in these regard had already been issued to the Electoral Registration Officers.
She said the Electoral Registration Officers shall display the lists of names to be added /deleted on the notice board of their respective offices. The process of accepting claims, objections and updating electoral rolls would be on till October 20. For this purpose Form 6, Form 6-A, Form 7, Form 8 and Form 8-A were available with all booth-Level officers. The forms could be downloaded from the website http// www.ceopunjab.nic.in.
— TNS
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Farmers hold protest against DAP price hike, block NH-1
Amritsar, October 14 Kisan Sangharsh Committee president Satnam Singh Pannu said the cost of a bag of DAP now was Rs 1,035 while it was merely Rs 467 per bag last year. “This steep hike cannot be justified on any ground. By decontrolling the fertiliser sector, the government has permitted the manufacturers to loot the farmers,” he alleged. The farmers demanded a bonus of Rs 300 per quintal over the minimum support price(MSP) for rice. Pannu said: “PUSA 1121 basmati that is procured only by private traders should also be procured by government agencies.” Farmers in Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran and Kapurthala also held protests against the DAP price hike.
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Rs 80 per quintal bonus on paddy likely: BKU
Chandigarh, October 14 Pawar, who will visit Punjab on November 20, told BKU leaders that the issue would be put up before the Union Cabinet next week. BKU leader Balbir Singh Rajewal, who led the delegation, said there had been a 64 per cent increase in the price of various farm inputs. Therefore, the Centre should be liberal in determining the bonus on paddy. Rajewal said the delegation had sought Rs 2,909 per quintal as the minimum support price (MSP) for wheat. However, Costs and Prices Commission for Agriculture chief Ashok Gulati had reportedly recommended Rs 1,350 per quintal. Rajewal said the delegation had urged Pawar to take effective steps to bring down the prices of fertilisers and diesel. They brought to the minister’s notice that some banks were charging high interest rates on loans advanced to farmers and denying them the 3 per cent rebate on interest announced by the Centre.
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RDX recovery: State towns were
on hit-list too
Patiala, October 14 Though the police probing the Ambala RDX recovery case believe that the final target was Delhi, intelligence inputs from Jammu and Kashmir as well as Punjab suggest that numerous places in Punjab and Haryana were on the hit-list too. "The information was duly communicated to the Haryana Police early this month", said a senior police officer. Intelligence documents sent to the district police chiefs in Punjab and senior police officers in Haryana point towards the role of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) area commander Kareem Ansari who had in a letter sent to officials at the Karnal railway station on October 1, threatened blasts at the railway stations in Ambala, Karnal, Panipat, Sunam, Jind and Rewari and religious shrines in Kurukshetra and Karnal. A letter by the DGP, Jammu & Kashmir, to the Punjab Police had suggested that the credentials of those from J&K residing in Punjab and Haryana be checked, but cautioned that they must not be needlessly harassed. It was a telephone call from Nepal intercepted by the Indian intelligence agencies that helped a joint police team from Haryana and Delhi to recover the explosives from a car in Ambala Cant yesterday. The explosives were not connected to detonators.
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Union Govt gives nod to reuse of gunny bags
Patiala, October 14 The president of the All-India Rice Millers’ Association (AIRMA), Tarsem Saini, said a letter in this regard had been sent to the Punjab Government by the office of the Union Minister of State for Food and Public Distribution Professor KV Thomas. The decision assumes significance considering that a strong lobby of gunny bag manufacturers was opposing the reuse of the gunny bags. Saini said: "Owing to the persistent efforts of Minister for the Food and Supplies Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon, the Union Government has finally allowed the reuse of gunny bags". "In the wake of the fact that last year the Punjab Government was not allowed to reuse the gunny bags, the state government had to bear a loss amounting to crores,” Saini said.
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2,000 litres of synthetic milk seized in Patiala
Patiala, October 14 Civil Surgeon Dr Varinder Singh Mohi said: “Acting on a complaint against Guru Nanak Dairy, I along with Medical Officer Dr Karan Singh and Food Inspector Rakhi Vinayak raided the dairy. The condition of the dairy was pitiable. At the backyard, we found a drum of milk which was stinking and many insects and flies were floating in it. The entire area was very unhygienic. When we inspected the fridge lying inside the dairy, we found milk that was not fit for human consumption. Bhajan Singh, owner of the dairy, told us that the milk was to be used for making ice creams,” he added. Dr Mohi further said they also found material which was used for making artificial milk. “We found 2,000 litres of milk prepared from these substances and took two samples out of it. We also took samples of ghee, cream and other adulterated substance. When we questioned the owner of the dairy regarding all these substances, he could not give any satisfactory answer,” he added. Meanwhile, Drug Inspector Jasbir Singh Dhingra and his team raided Sidhu Medical Hall and seized banned medicines worth Rs 40,000.
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JEs to go on mass casual leave from October 18
Patiala, October 14 Speaking to The Tribune, Swaran Lal, president, Council of Junior Engineers, said in case their demands were not accepted by October 20, they would take out a massive protest rally in Chandigarh on October 21.
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High Court dismisses CMC appeal on admission norms
Chandigarh, October 14 Dismissing the appeal, the Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice MM Kumar and Justice Gurdev Singh ruled: “We express our agreement with the view that there cannot be micro classification within the same class. “Once a person is proved to be a Christian by passing the Bible test and producing a baptism certificate, the proof that he belongs to the Christian community stands furnished. “To say that he must produce a sponsorship letter from sponsoring body/church duly signed by an authorised signatory would be wholly unreasonable, unfair and capricious.” The case has its genesis in a petition filed before a Single Judge by Joel D Masih against Baba Farid University of Health Science and other respondents. In his petition, Joel, a candidate for admission to the MBBS course offered by the CMC in the category of “Christian Minority Punjab candidates ” had sought the quashing of clause 11(a) of the prospectus. He had said the clause required a “Christian candidate to obtain the mandatory sponsorship letter from sponsoring bodies/churches, referred to in the prospectus ”. Taking up the matter, Justice Rajive Bhalla had asserted: “By requiring a candidate to obtain a sponsorship letter from named churches/bodies as a pre-condition to admission, the respondents have conferred the power to render ineligible a candidate otherwise eligible and duly qualified?. “The condition requiring a candidate to obtain a sponsorship letter, in my considered opinion, imposes an eligibility condition, that does not stand the test of fairness, is arbitrary, exploitative and, therefore, cannot form part of the eligibility criteria.”
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16 arrested in anti-piracy raids
Chandigarh, October 14 The raids, which were conducted at various locations in Amritsar, Barnala, Bathinda, Ludhiana, Mohali, Jalandhar, Patiala and Tarn Taran, led to the seizure of pirated materials, including 316 pirated compact discs, 14 personal computers, 18 recorded chips, 16 card readers, 17 DVD writers and two laptops among other materials. An IMI release here said following the raids, 16 persons had been arrested and booked under the Copyright Act. The IMI investigators under the supervision of Punjab state coordinator DS Dhaliwal played an instrumental role in informing the police authorities and exposing the offenders.
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With the tussle between the Punjab Government and the farmers protesting land acquisition in Mansa district continuing, over 200 farmers were arrested today.
